Hospitals and the island’s two airports are understood to be functioning as normal thanks to generators. It was not immediately clear how hotels are coping, although holiday areas of the island like the municipality of Arona are affected. The blackout occurred around 1pm local time.
Neighbours living near to an electricity power station in the municipality of Candelaria on Tenerife’s east coast are said to have heard a blast around the time power went down.
Patricia Hernandez, mayoress of the capital city Santa Cruz, said in a tweet: “Electricity supplier Endesa is trying to re-establish power on the island.
“We’re told it’s going to take around six hours.”
Around one million people are estimated to have been affected by the blackout.
A receptionist at the three-star Hotel Catalonia Oro Negro said the mains electricity was down but the hotel was functioning as normal with generators.
A receptionist at the Jardin Tropical Hotel in the neighbouring Adeje said the blackout was causing some problems and the air conditioning at the hotel was not working but “thankfully all the lifts were working” and there were no major calamities.
A Spanish bar owner in Los Cristianos said: “I’m not affected because there’s a generator in the building where the bar is but a lot of bars and restaurants in the area are without electricity and will have had to close.
“The blackout happened just before lunch so it couldn’t have occurred at a worst time.”
Brit Debbie Moyse, manager at the Cozy Cafe in Playa de Las Americas, added: “I reckon I’m going to lose around 10,000 euros in food alone.
“I’ve got four large-stand up freezers and seven catering fridges in the kitchen and everything in there will have to be thrown away.
“We’re well-known in the area for our Sunday lunches and we haven’t been able to serve any hot food since around 1pm.
“All I can serve are cakes and cold drinks till the ice melts.
“At the moment I’ve got 20 people on the terrace getting stuck into the sangria while another customer has managed to put on some music through his phone.
“I’ve been in Tenerife for five years and have never heard of a blackout this size. The whole of the island has been hit. The owner has been here for 20 years and it’s the first time he’s heard of a blackout on this scale either.”
A spokesman for a local regional government-run emergency service coordinator said: “Mains electricity has gone down on the island of Tenerife. The provider is currently working on restoring service.
A spokesman for Spanish airports authority AENA added: “Tenerife’s airports are operating with generators. For the moment the blackout has not affected operations.”
Trams in Tenerife’s capital Santa Cruz have ground to a halt.
A British expat living on the island took to Twitter to rage: “I’m close to a deadline and I needed my laptop to work.
“The only thing I like about this is I’m eating all the ice-cream in the fridge before it melts.”
Firefighters in Tenerife said they had been called out to around 70 cases of people being trapped in lifts.
Mains electricity began to be restored to parts of the island late yesterday afternoon/on Sunday afternoon.
Tram bosses in the capital Santa Cruz tweeted around 5.30pm local time they were “slowly” beginning to re-establish normal service.
Despite initial reports pointing to an incident in Candalaria, the power cut was later blamed on an explosion at a sub-station in Granadilla in the south of the island.